From the Provincial, Fr. Louis Studer, O.M.I.

Dear Oblate Friends,

In January I was blessed to travel to Zambia to experience the missionary work of the Oblates.It was a wonderful trip, but with one complication – I had trouble sleeping.My problem was due to receiving an email from Rome a few days prior to my trip.It said that Bp. Eugeniusz Juretzko, O.M.I. of Cameroon had died.I had previously met Bp. Juretzko in Poland and he shared a story I will never forget.

Bishop Juretzko was the “Apostle of the Pygmies.”A native of Poland, he spent decades living in pygmy villages where he established churches, built schools and even dug wells.Prior to returning to Poland for a short vacation, Bp. Juretzko had given some of the pygmies plastic rosaries.Every night they would pray the rosary.One night, the pygmies had eaten a meal with onions.When they recited the rosary, onion particles got on the beads.The pygmies put their rosaries on their beds that night and when they awoke all the beads were gone – rats had eaten the rosaries, thinking they were onions!

When Bp. Juretzko told me that story, he asked if I had some extra rosaries for his pygmies.Fortunately I had brought a box of rosaries to give to the Polish Oblates as a thank-you for their hospitality.The Polish Oblates never got those rosaries, the pygmies did instead.

During my Zambia trip, most of those early nights I kept tossing and turning in bed.I couldn’t get those rosary eating rats out of my mind.Fortunately, I never saw any rats.But I did find Oblates working with Zambians just as needy as Bp. Juretzko’s pygmies – people with limited food supplies, lack of clean water, inadequate housing and no sanitation systems.

My gift of the rosaries was not really a gift from me.It was a gift from friends like you, because it is your generosity that allows the Missionary Oblates to give the gift of hope to the poor in places like Cameroon and Zambia.When you go to bed tonight, say a prayer for our Oblates and the people they serve in these countries.And thank God that you don’t have to worry about a rat eating your rosary while you sleep.